PBS

As I watched the documentary on Obama's presidential race and the events leading up to that point I took a couple notes on specific things that caught my attention or provoked me to analyze certain words a little deeper. One of my favorite parts was the reference to Barack's first time in the senate. Barack was a rookie (if you will) and because of that he was the last person with the opportunity to have a chance to voice his opinion. Barack passes a note back that says "shoot. me. now." the note was responding to Senator Biden who apparently was incessantly talking and talking. I found this ironic obviously because he would go on to be his vice president.

One of the main things that perked my curiosity as to what motivated Barack at this time was when an interviewee said that Barack was "on a quest to find a church home and to put down his roots". When Barack was trying to breach into Chicago politics he chose a church for the qualities it had such as, big and popular amongst the black community, and many of its members were the black elite in Chicago. The way I understood Barack was that he needed this connection with the black community because they didn't see him as one of their own. Later, when Barack decides not to let Reverend Wright introduce him before he announced his candidacy for president it appears that Barack is separating himself from that image that benefited him before but now that he needs to go beyond the connection with the African Americans of Chicago and to the average white American. My whole problem with this is that he is forming this public image to best benefit himself and that is a contradiction to "dreams of my father". In his book he is striving to find who he is and "to be an individual" no matter what the outside influence is.